Saturday review, 1/24

Best showing of the day:#3 Connecticut 69, #19 Notre Dame 61: The Irish aren’t great this year; there are probably five teams better than them in the Big East. But they had the nation’s longest home winning streak (45) and had tied the conference record for consecutive home conference wins (20). The Huskies accomplished this streak-stopper by holding Notre Dame to 33 percent shooting from the field. Luke Harangody got his points (a game-high 24) as he seemingly always will, but none of his teammates got to double digits. Principal among the contained Irish weapons has Kyle McAlarney, who made 3 of 8 3-pointers, went 0-for-7 when forced inside the arc, and never got to the free-throw line.

Key result of the day:#25 Illinois 64, Wisconsin 57: The margin between No. 2 and No. 8 in the Big Ten is small enough right now that Illinois’ seven-point home win over struggling Wisconsin makes sense. Every inch will make a difference in what appears to be a seven-bid league, and the Badgers (11-7, 3-4, RPI 23) are surviving on the strength of a tough schedule right now. The Illini (17-3, 5-2, RPI 16) opened Big Ten play with a win at Purdue, and have yet to counteract that with anything ugly.

Landmark of the day:Oregon State 77, Stanford 62: A The Beavers were 0-18 in Pac-10 play last year. They got a home win in overtime over USC in the second conference game of this season, leading us to believe there was a little progress being made. Suddenly, this weekend, they went from 1-5 to 3-5 in the conference with road wins over California and Stanford, their first back-to-back road conference victories since 2003. Oregon State jumped out to an early 14-point lead, shot 62 percent from the floor, and never trailed. Clearly, coach Craig Robinson has something major going right. On the other hand, Stanford falls to 3-4 in the league, and the bottom half of the standings is not the place to be this year for any Pac-10 team looking to make the Big Dance.

Big 12’s big game:#14 Texas 67, Texas A&M 58: The Aggies’ 1-4 conference record isn’t as dire as it looks; their schedule was skewed with a really tough portion of it at the front. A 9-7 mark is certainly still within reach, but may require a sweep of Texas Tech and a win at Baylor or at home over Texas. For UT, Damion James allowed the Horns to escape on a poor night from A.J. Abrams. Somebody seems to step up each night; it’s not the most reassuring trend, but it’s hard to see the Horns falling out of the league’s top 3 spots this season, with either Kansas or Missouri as that third team.